Day 9

Today was a little different than the usual Wednesday. The first half of the class I sat at the table with Emma and listened to Mr. Maudsley lecture. After that, he paired me with one of the struggling students and informed me that she would be working on her definitions. I was expecting to help explain some of the vocabulary words or even look them up on the internet with her to give her a few different ways the word is described. Mr. Maudsley had something different in mind though. He gave me two worksheets with the definition of an atom and ion at the top and numbered one through thirty below that. His instructions were to have her rewrite the definition thirty more times. I was a little shocked at this at first but apparently he's had them do this before because she didn't ask any questions and began writing right away. I wasn't really sure how he wanted me to help her because she was busy copying down the definition over and over again so I just sat there and watched her for the remainder of the class.

I didn't really feel as if I had a productive day and I'm not sure if this student did either. I've listened to multiple lectures from Mr. Maudsley and he always does a great job at explaining concepts so I wasn't sure why he was having her learn the definitions this way. Maybe he tried explaining these words to her before and she just didn't catch on? Whatever the reason, I personally didn't see this as being effective. He claimed it would be because at the end of writing the definition thirty times, she would have the definition ingrained in her head. I was thinking to myself that she can memorize anything he tells her to memorize but she still may not understand fully what she is writing down.  

This got me thinking about the way they run things at Classic City High School. Mr. Maudsley doesn't have the students use the computers unless they are working on an assignment for another class, but I've heard of other tutors who come and literally sit at a computer for the entire class period. Many of them complete practice tests and assignments to prepare themselves for the EOCT but get absolutely nothing out of it because they just put an answer down and receive credit for their work. I know Mr. Maudsley didn't do this but the assignment he had this student was a similar concept. I don't see what she got out of writing down a definition thirty times unless she understood the term, which I'm guessing she didn't based off of the fact that she was the only student working on it. Overall, I'm not trying to bash Mr. Maudsley because I think he's a fantastic teacher. I just don't agree with the assignment he had her complete today and thought it was a little pointless for me to be there today.